New Blood
by Gadreel
Summary: Set in modern times, three American teenagers come to Hollow Hill, a village near Coventry, while their father works in London. The housekeeper promises to keep an eye on them. As they notice strange things happening in the town, they hear stories of goblins and elves. Could this be why the housekeeper's daughter (and everyone else's) aren't allowed out after night?
1. Chapter 1

We hit a bump in the road right after we turned off the deserted highway onto a cobblestone driveway that probably had seen more horse hooves in the past year than it had car tires in the last 20 before. For an American, the whole thing seemed very quintessentially English. The cobblestone path (though, admittedly, there were parts of my town that still had the rickety stones not yet torn and replaced with the smoother pavement), the accent of our taxi driver, and the little brown fence that lined the rolling green grasses of the massive property.

My suitcase (one of many, and this one had not fit into the tiny trunk of the taxicab) bounced in my lap, trying to jump up from my knees and hit me in the face. It was held down only by my arm as we drove down the path. My brother's elbow dug into my side, and I suspected he knew about it.

"How much farther?" my father said from the passenger seat. However long I spent in England, I would never get used to their driver's side being on the right side of the car. (There were many things that I could admit England had gotten "right" over America- such as the metric system and d/m/y time formula- but I would never give in on the way we drove, nor the thing with the u's).

"A few minutes. sir," the driver said. I was still admittedly suspicious of taxi drivers ever since Season 1 of Sherlock. They didn't really have taxi's where I lived, and the idea was something I thought was reserved for quaint British farm drives (a la C. S. Lewis) and the bustling cities of London or New York.

"I see the lake!" my best friend Frances yelled. She was loud all the time. Her whisper voice was like what a normal-person's "inside voice" should be. She pressed her face to the window, though I could see it emerging just fine from where I was seated.

"Hollow Lake", I told her, having done some minor research into the place before coming here.

"H_a_llow Lake, you mean?" she said, turning to give me a slightly-sarcastic-but-perfectly-done eyebrow. (Frances was all things the stuff of men's Asian fantasies, with the ridiculous added bonus of being a tall Chinese woman. She had several inches on my short 5'3" stature).

The lake appeared fully in the window as she drove along its shore. I put a hand on Frances' shoulder and pushed her back into the seat so I could look at it better. It was surrounded, like the rest of the lands besides the initial grassy hills that were begging for a sheep farm or something equally British, by heavily forested lands. They would be fun to roam around in and take pictures, I thought to myself, thinking of my blog. On the other side was a small village that looked like it had been frozen in the 19th century.

"Hollow," I repeated, finally coming back to what she had said after my short inner monologue.

"You sure?" she said, still sounding incredulous of my information.

"Yes, Frances. I did my research." I rolled my eyes.

"How can a lake be hollow?" she said, though more of a mocking way then actually inquisitive.

"I don't know. But it's definitely Hollow Lake", I said.

"It's Hollow Lake," the taxi driver piped up.

"See?" I said to her, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out.

"How can a lake be hollow?" she asked again.

"Don't know, miss." He paused for a moment before saying, "Local lore says it's where the goblin's live."

"Goblins?" we asked at the same time.

"Don't go out after dark, they say," he said, then went silent as we pulled up to the front of the guest house.

Goblins. How very British.


	2. Chapter 2

The house where we were staying was not the biggest on the property. That house was owned by the family, and looked impressively Victorian. When we had passed by it in the taxi, I had seen the massive, geometric gardens that reminded me of the garden's so often described in the Royal Gardens. This was called The Hall, or so the housekeeper told us as she greeted us in front of where we would spend our three weeks of residence.

"This we call "The Lodge"," she said, sweeping her hand at the square house. It was three stories (the top was a dormer, admittedly) and symmetrical on either side of the door, with tall windows to its sides. The thick shade of a trees draped over the house, casting a dappled shadow over the walkway that. One side of the house was all meadows, leading into forests and hills.

"The house is all original furniture, much to the look when it was built in the early 19th century," the housekeeper said as we walking in the front door. "The dining room and kitchens are on your right. the parlor is on your left."  
Parlor. I smiled at the word.

It was a clean and tidy room. The walls were a soft greenish color that somehow didn't remind me of puke, but more like mint ice cream- it felt instantly calm when I walked in. There were cushioned chairs and a couch, all decorated in green, white, and blue. Gauzy white curtains over the windows finished off the look.

"There are four rooms, two on either side. You can take your pick of the two on the right. The dormer upstairs would be nice for the young man. Bathroom is in the end of the hallway," she said. I wandered into a room once we were inside, seeing it decorated in a soft rose color.  
I put my bag on the bed, then flopped down unceremoniously onto the lush covers and buried myself for a moment in the luxury. "I pick this one!" I called out, mostly to Frances, who was already protesting.

I covered my head with a pillow and waited until she pouted off into the other room before rolling onto my back and sitting up to explore my room. The room was mostly taken up by the large, four-poster bed that had the heavy, fancy curtains to pull across. Opposite the bed was a large silver mirror, one begging for a set of silver combs (although I lacked the featherly blonde hair. My springy black curls would never be tamed with the soft natural fibers). A barely-cushioned bench was placed in front of it. More of the gauzy white curtains were covering the windows, though thicker curtains were pulled off to the sides for more covering.

My father knocked on the door and poked his head in. "I brought you bags in. Go ahead and unpack. Want to go to the Hall for lunch? I'm starving."

"Me, too," I groaned. I hadn't eaten since the airplane, When he disappeared, I drug my several suitcases in, heaved them up onto the bed, and threw open the doors of the wardrobe.

"Check for Narnia while you're in there," Frances said, flopping down on my bed in the same fashion that I had. I hadn't heard her come in, and I jumped around.

"Frances!" I said, stopping myself before I could squeal. I threw a dress at her, turning my back on her in embarrassment. "Don't you have your own clothes to put away?" I asked her.

"My clothes would rather the suitcase or the back of chairs," she answered.

"The floor, more like," I said. Although she always dressed nice, her clothes were perpetually strewn about her room.  
"Let's go!" my father yelled from downstairs. We had limited room.

Jensen, my brother, was already downstairs, hands shoved into his pockets. He was a year younger than me, only 16, but looking much better than I had been as a summer-before-Junior-year High school student (he was a wrestler, which accounted for the ridiculous physique that he had starved and lifted for).

Frances bounced down the stairs after me. I put on my boots at the door and then my jacket. It only got around 60 degrees here even in the summer, and that was fine with me. 70 was getting uncomfortably warm in the dreary Pacific Northwest cities. I would take the 45 degrees outside with a scarf instead of dying of heat exhaustion any day.

The end of my friend's scarf hit me in the face as she dramatically threw it over her shoulder. My father rolled his eyes (a trait my brother and I had both picked up) and started to walk down the path. It was a little less than a mile to the Hall, but I enjoyed the walk. After being cooped up in an airplane and then in that cab, I wanted nothing more than to put on my running shorts and take off into the trails.

We were quiet on our way there, even Frances. The phones didn't work (more like, my father didn't want to pay for the expensive coverage here for us), so we were cut off from the rest of the world until we could retreat into our heaven of wifi back in the Lodge.

As we approached, I looked over at the gardens. They were nice, I supposed, in a sunny-walk-with-a-parasol sort of way, but I had never been fond of taking nature and confining it into such fake shapes. I wanted the deciduous trees and dirt and rocky paths, not manicured lawns and trimmed fruit trees with pebble-lined fountains.

Inside of the Hall, we were greeted with the housekeeper. She smiled at us, ushering us into the formal dining room. It could hold a dozen people at least, I was sure, but she set us up at the end of one side of the table.

"Lunch will be out in just a few minutes. I made lemonade, if anyone would like a cup?" she asked.

We all nodded in thankfulness, and a minute later, a pitcher was placed in the center of our area. I took a glass and sipped on it. Lunch was sandwiches (nothing too English, and I was not disappointed. I liked my American food).

When we were done, we wondered the entryway, looking at the pictures on the walls and the intricate furniture, unable to control our curiosity and wondering when we would be ushered out for being rude. I looked up a few minutes later to see a teenage girl standing in the parlor. "Oh!" I said, and the party looked up guitily, falling back with abashed looks on their faces.

"No, you're fine," she said, laughing. "It's not my house. The owners are out of town for Christmas."

"This is my daughter, Kassidy," the housekeeper said, appearing in the doorway. I noticed her noticing my brother and him noticing her as well.

We said our hello's, then my father asked "Where was this photo taken, if I can ask?" He pointed to a framed photo of two girls hand in hand.  
"If you follow the path behind the house- well, it's actually a complicated little path- but you can find a big circle meadow, surrounded by trees. Locals say it was druidic, but that doesn't mean much," Kassidy said.

"Great stargazing at night," the housekeeper said, her voice sounding weird (a bit too forceful?).

Kassidy snorted. "You won't even let me out of the house after dark, and you're recommending they go stargazing in the druid circle?"

"Hush, now," her mother said, giving a smile before turning a deadly look on the daughter. "Great paths for jogging, if that's what you fancy."  
I nodded and Frances rolled her eyes.

We thanked her and started our way down the stairs. Kassidy followed us out. "Is there a reason why your mother doesn't let your out after dark?" I asked her.

"It's a town tradition, I suppose. No one goes outside after dark, especially the older girls."

"That's weird," Frances piped in.

"Tell me about it. I think they still believe in the old stories around her. I try to tell her she's being overprotective, but I don't step a foot outside come nightfall unless I want my butt handed to me."

"Old stories?" I asked.

"Old town stuff. Goblins, elves, the works, you know?"

After lunch, before it was going to get dark, my father said his goodbyes to me and my brother. Our mother died a few years prior, leaving us as a tag team with one member down. My father's job required him to travel. Sometimes we ended up in places like Australia, but this time we ended up in a little village not far from Coventry.

"How long until you're back?" I asked him after he released his arms from our hug.

"A week, at least," he sighed, running his hand through his hair. Before my mother died, there had never been any gray in it. Taking care of the two of us on his own and dealing with the loss of someone so awe-some as my mother had aged him quickly. I would be off to college next year, and my brother the year after that, though I knew the pain of losing us to a university somewhere would be more painful than the stress of raising two kids on your own.

Our mother's brother (so, our uncle, obviously) owned the Lodge house. I had never gotten along with him too well (I found him kind of shady, and even our mother never brought us around him except a few awkward holiday dinners). But when my dad was off to London for business, he offered us to stay there.

The Housekeeper lived in a room downstairs, and she would take care of us. She even had a teenage daughter the same age (my father said this like it was an added bonus, but I wasn't so sure). So we brought along my best friend Katie (Jensen hadn't been able to get anyone to come along, as it was the middle of wrestling season, and his coaches were already going to kill him for missing so much of the season).

My father and brother hugged each other (my brother was a poster boy for the perpetually emotionless, but he always hugged my father. After losing our mother, we never let a time to say a proper goodbye go to waste).

The cab pulled up next to us, shutting down the tears that would form if we played this out. We were always anxious to be away from each other, My father cleared his throat, clapped my brother on the shoulder and said, "take care of your sister."

I smiled, saying, "hey, I'm the older one!" He smiled at me, put his back back into the trunk of the cab that had broughten him here only hours before, and got into the backseat. We stood silently, watching the cloud of dust from the kicked up dirt, waiting until it was a little dot on the horizon before turning around and going back inside.


	3. Chapter 3

As a habitual runner, I prefered to run in running shorts, but as I could see my breath and the sun hadn't even gone down yet, I decided that my running pants might be a better option. The humid night air- a storm looked to be coming in- suffocated my room. I forced up my lead-painted single-pane window.

Sitting on the couch downstairs was Frances and Kassidy, talking to each other. Kassidy was also very pretty, and I wondered if her mother (who reminded me of a Spanish version of Aunt Petunia from Harry Potter) had looked like that at as a teenager. She had shiny black hair, which had to reach at least her waist. Her skin was lightly tanned, favoring more towards the coloring of Frances' skin than mine (it perpetually annoyed Frances that we couldn't share make-up with me being so much darker than her).

Jensen was sprawled out in a recliner, laptop on his lap as he lazily scrolled through the page with one finger on the trackpad. He barely looked up at me. "Going on for a run?" he said, putting as much enthusiasm in his voice as he could for his scrolling.

"It's getting dark out there," Kassidy said, looking a bit cautious.

"The sun hasn't even started to go down yet. I won't be out long," I promised. "I'll jog straight and come back. I won't get lost."

"Like you didn't get lost in Disney Land?" Frances said with a smirk. She had never let me live down the time as a kid I had gotten lost in the amusement park. My father had found me a half hour later in the security office, eating a popsicle.

"That was one time," I said defensively. "If you hadn't left me for the teacups."

"I was nine."

"So was I!" I said.

"Children," Jensen said, drawing out the word.

"Whatever," I said.

I left the house. It felt weird to not lock the door behind me, but people here "didn't even lock their doors," my father had said of its safety when we were driving here.

I figured I had less than an hour before the sun went down and it got completely dark. It wouldn't be wise to stay out on foreign lands where I had never been, common sense told me. But as the music of my ipod drummed in my ears and the path disappeared under my feet, I lost track of the time.

It was a few minutes after I ate the ground that I realized how dark it was actually. To be fair, it wasn't my clumsiness that caused it (well, at least I didn't trip over a root or anything). I hadn't been paying attention to the ground beneath my feet. My shoes hit a patch of rocks, and I lost my footing. I put up my arms, trying to block my fall, but I still landed face-first on a rock (this I could attribute to my clumsiness).

"Shit," I said, pinching my nose tenderly and rolling onto my back. My nose bled pretty easily, and I had just given it good cause. I pushed myself up with the other hand and took a moment to breathe before assessing the damage.

"Ugh," I said aloud, although there was no one around to hear me say it. "Not my new running pants." I poked at the skin showing through the rip in my spandex pants (this was a bad idea as I seemed to have shredded both my skin and my new pants). Forgetting about my pants as the headache started in, I leaned forward, trying to keep the blood from traveling down my throat.

It was then that I realized it was dark. It was like a light switched had been flipped. The last vestiges of the sun's rays were quickly disappearing; the small path faded into the darkness as I looked behind me to where I was running from.

"Hopefully this is as safe a village as they say it is," I whispered to myself as I stood up. Blood poured from my nose as I released my grip on it. When it was through, I lifted up the edge of my spandex shirt and wiped the blood that was all over my face. Cold air hit my stomach, chilling me.

I sighed as I saw the blood bright against the yellow fabric. If I got back quick enough, I could probably wash the blood out. The blood coming from my knee was warm and sticky against my leg, dripping onto my sneakers.

While I walked back, I became aware of the skimpiness of my outfit. Short sleeves left almost all of my arms exposed to the cold. Although there were goosebumps on my arms, it wasn't from the cold. I had the eerie feeling that someone was watching me. I looked into the dark forest, but there wasn't much I could see. I really didn't want to die in the middle of some path in England just because I had wanted to run.  
I prodded the area around my nose, already feeling the swelling. I would probably wake up two black eyes. I had never had one, and I wondered how it would show up on my skin and how much makeup I would need to cover it up (I couldn't recall ever seeing another black person with a black eye, once I tried to think about it).

Every step pulled against my wound, but after a few minutes, the whole area felt alit with pain. I could handle the pain being spread out, and I was just thankful that it wasn't the searing feeling of tugging at broken flesh.

Relief flooded through me, washing away the fatigue that had set in in the forever that I had been walking. That relief lasted all the way until I went to open the front door and found it to be...locked? I tried to twist the doorknob, but the metal knob was unforgiving in my hand. I knocked and knocked and knocked some more, but there was no one to be hearing me, apparently.

"Oh, come on," I said, resting my forehead sadly on the door. My nose was really starting to throb, and I was freezing. So much for "we never even lock the doors"! I checked under the mats and potted plants, and even checked for fake rocks, but there was no hidden key.  
The plan that came to mind finally after minutes of me standing dumbfounded on the door was not one that I relished to do. Circling the house, I came around to my side. Now-dead roses intertwined the spaces of the white-washed trellis attached to the side of the house. A breeze flapped the edges of the lace curtains outside, and I could see that my window was still open. Could I fit through that tiny opening?  
I put one foot in a section of the trellis and shook it firmly. It seemed like it would hold my weight, but was I willing to test it? Aforementioned breeze made the decision for me as it cut at my bloody knee and bare arms.

"I'm going to break an arm," I told myself as I took a step up. Luckily I wasn't afraid of heights. It felt sturdy enough under my weight, but this thing was made from cheap wood (I didn't think that the housekeeper would take to it quite nice if I broke her trellis, though it was her fault for locking me out!). And so it was that I climbed my way to the second story, all without falling down or breaking free from the wall (I was glad for the lack of neighbors, as I sure looked like a criminal climbing the side of the house in the middle of the night).

The trickier part was fitting through the window. It was barely big enough for me to fit my head through. The corner edges of the trellis stuck up about an inch into the space, meaning I would have to drag my body across them to get in. I certainly wasn't going to turn back now, however."

I stuck my head in and grabbed onto the edge of the wardrobe. Using it, I shimmied myself inside enough until I could double over and awkwardly roll inside. I lay on the floor for a few minutes, feeling a mixture of tired, angry, and admittedly a little bit proud.

Half of me really wanted to just fall asleep right there on the floor, but my sense of pride made me get up. I went into the bathroom, noticing that everyone's door's were closed. Had they all fallen asleep on me? What time was it?

Water stung my knee as I washed out the dirt. It would be a pretty big scab in the morning, for sure. The blood on my face wasn't that bad, but I did strip off my shirt and scrub as much out as I could. I left it to dry over the shower curtain before returning to my room, in only my sports bra and underwear.

I froze with my hands mid-air as I went to toss my now-ruined pants over the edge of the chair. All the hair stood up on the back of my neck; someone was watching me. I turned slowly to survey the room, afraid that I would find what I felt was there. But when I did a full search, I found nothing (there weren't even any monsters under my bed, and I check for sure).

Deciding that I was just being paranoid, I closed my window (it had been stupid to open my window because now it was like an ice box in here) and shut the heavy curtains suspiciously. Once I was in my pajamas, I crawled under the blankets, covered my head with them, and tried to sleep.

That was easier said than done, however. I woke up several times during the night, after having horrible nightmares, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn't remember a thing about them. I woke up the next morning drenched in sweat. Pushing the blankets away, I sat up and stretched, then rubbed the goosebumps away that had formed on my bare legs from the cold air.

A second later, I froze. I stabbed at my knees with my finger, not believing what I was seeing- or rather, not seeing. There was nothing there. I had torn my knee to shreds, but now there was no evidence. Perfect brown skin on my palms, too. I touched my nose, but it didn't feel sore. How could this be? An eerie feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

But I had destroyed my pants, I reminded myself. The shirt would have blood on it. I snatched the pants from the back of the chair, but there was no hole there (not even any dirt). It looked like I hadn't even worn them at all.

I dashed out of my room, running the small space to the bathroom. I barged in, where my brother was washing his teeth. "Hey!" he said through the toothpaste. "I'm in here, you know."

"Shut up, Jensen," I said, grabbing the bright yellow shirt that was hung over the shower rod. "Did you touch these?" I asked. There was no blood on it. It was even dry. I must have looked a bit crazy (surely my hair was doing its bedhead thing).

"No?" he said, and the look he gave me confirmed my belief.

"Was this here when you came in?" I asked.

He spit out the toothpaste. "Josephine, I didn't touch your freaking shirt, jesus."

"This was dirty when I put it here last night."

"Maybe the housekeeper washed it," he said with a shrug. Then he slapped me over the head.

"What the hell was that for?" I rubbed the sore spot on my head.

"For staying out so late," he said angrily.

"I wasn't gone that long," I protested.

"I went to bed at midnight, and I would have heard you come in," he said.

"Midnight? I wasn't gone that long."

"Sure were. Scared the shit out of me. I woulda come look for you if I thought I could have found you without getting lost myself," Frances said, appearing in our doorway. She was still in her pajamas pants and a Doctor Who shirt.

"I was not out until midnight, and besides that, I had to crawl up the freaking trellis last night just to get in. Thanks to whoever locked all the doors," I said.

"You climbed up the trellis?" my brother said.

"Yup."

He smirked briefly, then pushed me out of the bathroom.

"This doesn't solve the mystery!" I said.

"What mystery?" I heard Kassidy say as she poked her head out of her room. "Glad you're not dead, by the way."  
I held up my shirt, as if this would prove anything to them. "When I was running last night, I tripped and skinned my knee and my nose started bleeding."

"That's not a mystery. You're just clumsy," my brother said.

I ignored him as I continued. "I ripped a hole in my running pants, and there was blood all over this shirt. Plus I had a bloody knee." I lifted said knee and pointed at it. "Now there is nothing."

"Maybe you heal quick," Kassidy said.

"Probably didn't trip as bad as ya thought," Frances said.

"But this shirt is clean. My pants don't have a hole in them," I insisted. I was not being foolish, I knew.

"Maybe my mom washed them?" Kassidy said.

"Probably imagined it," Jensen said.

"Oh, shut up," I said. I groaned and turned away. "Don't believe me. Whatever."


End file.
